I am trying to open a file, but I received:
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. The File is an XML-Document. Can anyone help?
string activeDirectory = #"X:\SubGraph\";
string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(activeDirectory);
foreach (string fileName in files){
FileStream file = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
After using a file, you must to close it, I think:
foreach (string fileName in files)
{
FileStream file = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
//your code
file.Close();
}
If you are using this piece of code in some kind of loop you need to close your FileStream each time before finishing loop cycle.
file.Close();
Or use "using" construction like this:
using (FileStream file = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
{
// your code goes here
file.Close();
}
Moreover, you better to accustom yourself to close all manually created streams after they are unnecessary anymore.
Under some circumstances Windows locks the files. In your case can be:
Another process is locking the file. It might be windows or you av software or who knows.
In order to discover who is locking the file you might several tools like wholockme or Unlocker. These tools will tell you which process is locking the file and even allow you to unlock it.
Maybe you are locking your own file. In your code snippet seems you are not closing the file you are reading (Maybe you can edit your question and add all code). You should remember to include:
file.Close();
... or file will remain open.
Related
I have Simple console application and list of files.
Every loop over my list i want to write the current file name into simple txt file:
String path = #"C:\log.txt"; // location whre to save my txt file
List<string> files = new List<string>(); // my files list
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Append, FileAccess.Write))
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs))
{
foreach (string file in files)
{
sw.WriteLine(file);
}
}
Why i can see the lines that written only at the end of my loop ?
What would happen if my application will crash at the middle of the loop ? my log files will be empty ?
StreamWriter buffers its output for performance reasons. It will write to the file if there are enough bytes in the internal buffer, if you call Flush()or if the stream is closed / disposed.
If you want your output to show immediately you'll have to add a call to sw.Flush() after each line written to sw.
Why i can see the lines that written only at the end of my loop.
Because the file is only being flushed to disk once StreamWriter.Dispose runs, at the end of your using statement. Meanwhile, it is buffered in memory.
What would happen if my application will crash at the middle of the
loop ? my log files will be empty ?
That depends on when your program terminated and what state the stream was at in that particular moment. If it was able to finish and flush to disk, you'll see the log file.
If you're afraid this piece of code might cause your application to crash due to some expected error, wrap your code in a try-catch block, and handle those exceptions.
Basic Code:
string startPath = #"C:\intel\logs";
string zipPath = #"C:\intel\logs-" + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy_dd_M-HH_mm_ss") + ".zip";
ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory(startPath, zipPath);
Error: the process cannot access the file "path_to_the_zip_file_created.zip" because it is being used by another process.
The above setup works fine on windows 7 where I have Visual Studio installed but I get the above error message when running on Windows Server 2008R2.
I have checked the antivirus logs and it does not block the application, nor does it lock the zip file that is created.
//WRONG
ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory("C:\somefolder", "C:\somefolder\somefile.zip");
//RIGHT
ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory("C:\somefolder", "C:\someotherfolder\somefile.zip");
I use to do the same error: zipping a file into the same folder that I'm zipping.
This causes an error, of course.
I came across this while because I was trying to zip the folder where my log files were being actively written by a running application. Kyle Johnson's answer could work, but it adds the overhead of copying the folder and the necessity of cleaning up the copy afterwards. Here's some code that will create the zip even if log files are being written to:
void SafelyCreateZipFromDirectory(string sourceDirectoryName, string zipFilePath)
{
using (FileStream zipToOpen = new FileStream(zipFilePath, FileMode.Create))
using (ZipArchive archive = new ZipArchive(zipToOpen, ZipArchiveMode.Create))
{
foreach (var file in Directory.GetFiles(sourceDirectoryName))
{
var entryName = Path.GetFileName(file);
var entry = archive.CreateEntry(entryName);
entry.LastWriteTime = File.GetLastWriteTime(file);
using (var fs = new FileStream(file, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
using (var stream = entry.Open())
{
fs.CopyTo(stream);
}
}
}
}
I had the exact same problem. The workaround is to copy the folder you are zipping to another folder and point CreateFromDirectory there. Don't ask me why this works but it does.
Directory.CreateDirectory(<new directory path>);
File.Copy(<copy contents into new folder>);
ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory(<new folder path>, <zipPath>);
The other answers, provide the correct reason, but I had a little problem in understanding them at the first sight.
If the path of the Zip file that is being created, is the same as the path that is given to the ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory, the ZipFile creates the desired zip file and starts adding the files from the directory to it. And will Eventually, try to add the desired zip file in the zip as well, as it is in the same directory. This is just not possible and not required, because the desired zipfile is being used by CreateFromDirectory method.
If you're getting this error because NLog is locking your log files, you can use the following workaround. Add 'keepFileOpen' attribute to your nlog tag inside NLog.config and set it to false:
<nlog xmlns=.......
keepFileOpen="false"
....>
More details here.
Note that this setting will have negative performance on NLog logging as indicated here.
I transfer file from computer to computer Through a WebService.
After the file was transfer I need to read its size.
When I try to read the file size I get:
The process cannot access the file XXX.XXX because it is being used by another process
What can I do to avoid this error?
i read the file like this:
LocalFileSize = File.Open(TermSendName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read).Length.ToString();
how to close this ?
I guess that you are using a FileStream to read the file.
Close the stream when the transfer has completed.
Try this
FileStream stream = File.Open(TermSendName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
LocalFileSize = stream.Length.ToString();
stream.Close();
If you only want to get length of file you can also do something like
FileInfo fileInfo = new FileInfo(fileName);
string size = fileInfo.Length.ToString();
Please check the following Stack Overflow link, I faced the same issue and got fixed here:
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.c#
My program is logging data to a file, at the same time a user interface displays the incoming data live. I want the logged data to be on disk within a second or two if computer/program/os/whatever shuts down. Data is coming in at least 100 times/sec.
I want the user to be able to give the log-file a new name, while logging is active. The problem is that i can't change the name of the file while it is open, even if it is by the same process.
Test case:
string fileName1 = "test.txt";
string fileName2 = "test2.txt";
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(new FileStream(fileName1, FileMode.Create)))
{
sw.WriteLine("before");
File.Move(fileName1, fileName2); //<<-- IOException - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
w.WriteLine("after");
}
So, How do i rename a file from a process while the same process is having a stream to the file open?
You should close the first stream, rename the file, then reopen the stream:
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(new FileStream(fileName1, FileMode.Create)))
{
sw.WriteLine("before");
sw.Close();
}
File.Move(fileName1, fileName2);
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(new FileStream(fileName2, FileMode.Append)))
{
sw.WriteLine("after");
}
I know this answer is a bit late to help you on your porting project but perhaps it will help others!
If you open the file with the FileShare.Delete flag it will let you rename it even though it is still open :)
You can't rename a file while it is open by a process, but if you want to write to it from the other instance of your program, do this.
Try FileShare.Write. You can use it in File.Open.
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter (File.Open(path, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Write))
{
...
}
Opening en closing the file 100 times a second will have a impact on your performance, you can log to a temp file and append the temp file every 10 seconds or so. That will give you what you want.
I was using the following to write to a file:
using(Stream FileStream = File.OpenWrite(FileName))
FileStream.Write(Contents, 0, Contents.Length);
I noticed that it was simply writing to file file correctly, but didn't wipe the contents of the file first. I then decided to simply use:
File.WriteAllBytes(FileName, Contents);
This worked fine.
However, why doesn't File.OpenWrite automatically delete the contents of the file as the other languages i've used do for their OpenWrite style function, and have a instead of appending?
Is there any method to do this?
This is the specified behavior for File.OpenWrite:
If the file exists, it is opened for writing at the beginning. The existing file is not truncated.
To do what you're after, just do:
using(Stream fileStream = File.Open(FileName, FileMode.Create))
fileStream.Write(Contents, 0, Contents.Length);
Your current call is equivalent to use FileMode.OpenOrCreate, which does not cause truncation of an existing file.
The FileMode.Create option will cause the File method to create a new file if it does not exist, or use FileMode.Truncate if it does, giving you the desired behavior. Alternatively, you can use File.Create to do this directly.
Yes you are right. File.OpenWrite does not overwrite the file.
The File.Create is used to overwrite the file if exists.